More Methodology (Glasgow School)

Radical Subjectivity was evolved as a way to discuss individual works - a rejection of the faux-objectivity of traditional popular criticism which, perhaps inadvertently, appears as an objective categorisation of a work’s value. 

In recent years, the validity of star ratings has occupied the Fringe, with major companies, including self-styled ‘King of the Fringe’ Guy Masterson Productions campaigning through the Facebook group, Forum for Abolishment of Review Stars at Edfringe. Arguing that a star rating is perceived as an absolute value, they emphasised its subjectivity and worried about the value of a review during the Fringe, when the rating system was often the victim of ‘star inflation.’ 

Against this, radical subjectivity  pitches itself as part of a dialogue with other critiques and artists. However, its primary concern is the performance itself. Fortunately, recent studies - especially on the role of the audience in theatre - have opened up the site of critique beyond the stage. 

The Festival is a Theatrical Event (ed. Cremona, Eversmann, van

Maanen, Sauter & Tulloch, 2004: pp 91-109) provides a rationale for selecting larger areas of endeavour as a 'performance text' following De Marini's assertion that the text is 'a performance unit which the analyst's intention... designates as semiotically complete.’ 

This might appear to simply justify a decision with ‘because I said so,’ but in the context of the hermeneutical spiral, it becomes a makeshift platform for discussion which makes no claims to objectivity or definitive analysis. It is merely a staging post in the ongoing journey.

The shift from the position of critic into the curator of opinions is equally challenging. My questionnaire model of investigation, inspired by Iser’s statement that  'central to the reading of every literary work is the interaction between its structure and the recipient' (ed. Counsell & Wolf, 2001: p179), invites stakeholders to reflect on the dialogue between their practice and the Glasgow environment. 

Surveys have been more commonly used to determine demographics of audiences:  Bennett's Theatre Audiences quotes Baumol and Bowen's 1966 study in her discussion of the composition of theatre audiences, which identified a homogeneity of class, education and income across audiences in the USA and UK (Bennett, 1997: p87) – and Throsby and Wither's 1979 The Economics of the Performing Arts, which discovered Baumol and Bowen's findings were replicated across English speaking countries. 

Capturing the Audience Experience (ITC, 2005) offers an approach to go beyond recording statistics and engage with emotional responses. Following Olsen (Olsen, 2002: p263), a limited number of questions are posed ('with few options so the response is higher') to a large number of people which allows, as described in ITC 2005 a meaningful statistical analysis.

Bennett observes that there is an 'ethnogenic' approach to collating this kind of information across a group: 'based on the premise that the group is more than a number of individuals, but is instead a 'supra-individual, having a distinctive range of properties'' (Bennett, 1997: p90). It is these properties that might open up for an analysis of Glasgow performance as a discrete entity. 

Wiping my Tears on The Stage Curtain

When I am not titting about, pretending to be an artist or making my new X-Men figures act out sordid fantasies, I like to take time to weep over the fate of theatre-makers. Not the ones that fall foul of the critics' lashes - that's unhappy but I would be a hypocrite to cry- but the ones that get lost in the Fringe. Like this show...

Just to be clear, I would love to be proved wrong, but I can't see Curtain Up becoming the buzz show of the Fringe. This is no slur on the quality - it looks as if there is some smart but simple dramaturgy there, and an imaginative approach to the old-school storytelling style of 'one woman on stage, with a tale about a tale' here. And I like the combination of a naive narrative complicated by including the narrator in the action.

It's the length of run and the timing. It is too short to build up attention, and it is in the first week when most publications are still running after the big guns at the Traverse, or working out which Guy Masterson play is his winner this year. The smaller venues get more hits in later weeks, in general and so... Curtain Up will come, get some audience and leave, barely noticed. 

This means all sorts of stuff - that theatre is like a business, in which those with success or money get more success or money, and the small companies and venues have to plug away, hoping against hope. It means that a really radical experiment is going to get lost in the endless lists of plays adapted from Shakespeare. 

But I have an instinct about this one... it might well be as moving, in a subtle way, as it claims.  Not sure. Leave me to weep.

The Man who would be King

Dyad presents Austen's Women

My fascination with Jane Austen came about when I decided that Emma could provide me with a guide to contemporary manners. Like many of my delusions, it lasted for most of an Edinburgh Festival, and saw me doing a pitiful impersonation of Mr Darcy while making claims for the importance of restrained conversation and the value of "good language" over "important content." Right in the middle of this period, I caught Austen's Women, directed by Guy Masterson and waxed lyrical about how it was "Immaculately conceived and performed with precision by Bex Vaughan...  an exercise in how traditional values - good words, simple sets, strong acting - can better radicalism."

Those who knew me at school would be doubtless amused by my conversion to Jane Austen. When I studied it back then, I spent most of the year moaning about its lack of political relevance. 

Rebecca Vaughan's script uses Austen's various novels to weave a compilation of a nineteenth century woman's meditations on femininity: directed by a Fringe veteran, it has the necessary populist edge without becoming sentimental or precocious. Using fourteen of Austen's characters, and throwing in surprises from her lesser known works, the show exploits Austen's range: from irritating teenagers through deluded romantics to mature-minded bores, Austen catches recognisable detail, rarely descending into outright caricature. 

Each speech explores a different angle on the status, plight and ambition of women, building to a comprehensive and multi-layered conclusion. Even stripped of their context, Austen's elegant use of irony shines, while the occasional cutting turn of phrase reveals a subtle mischief beneath the coy prose. 

Vaughan and Masterson's adaptation of her most famous heroines and villains studies both the depth and intensity of Austen's interests. As my younger self recognised, she was never that interested in the impact of social upheaval, but the conflict between passion and social propriety is never far from the surface. 

While it might seem a conservative production - the costume and set make it clear that this is a period piece - it allows the script to dictate the interpretation.  A joy for anyone who cares about language, it is a welcome addition to the season at Macrobert.